Development over time

The waqfiyya calls the khan simply ‘al-khan al-kabir’ (the great khan); it acquired the appellation ‘Khan al-Jumruk’ (customs khan) at a later date, indicating that the city’s tax office was located in that place.

The major khans in the center of Aleppo, including Khan al-Jumruk, are ultimately linked to the presence of foreigners in the city. The French and British consulates were established in Aleppo in the second half of the 16^th century and the Dutch followed in the early 17^th century; all three seem to have shared Khan al-Jumruk, at least for some time. The French occupied the representative rooms in the first floor of the northern wing. The British then took over the space, after the French consulate moved to Khan al-Hibal in the late 17^th or early 18^th century.[1] The foreigners of European origin, locally called ‘franks’, are a rather heterogeneous group in their origin and religious affiliation, but share basically the same motifs and interests during their stay in Aleppo: trade. For that reason, and their sharing the same way of life, they were perceived by the local people as a rather homogenous group. One important aspect is perception is that they shared the same living space, the khans in the urban center. As Alexander Russell writes in the middle of the 18^th century: “The major part of the Europeans live in khans in the principal quarter of the city. The ground-floor serves for their warehouses, the upper floor is fitted up for their dwellings, by building between the pillars of the colonnade, which form a long corridor; opening on which are a number of rooms, so that they much resemble cloisters; and as they are unmarried, and their communication with the people of the country is almost solely on account of trade, their way of live also not a little resembles the monastic.”[2]

Russell’s description alludes to the fact that the foreigners adjusted the khan structure for their needs. Since the khans were waqf property, tenants were not allowed to acquire their apartments in full ownership (milk), but were only able to rent them. Special legal arrangements, called ‘raqaba’ in Aleppo, allowed the tenants to obtain property rights on the parts of the khan they had constructed or reconstructed, establishing long-term tenancies. From the late 18^th century onwards, more and more merchant ‘dynasties’, like the Picciotto family from Livorno or the Poche family from Bohemia settled in the Aleppo and gradually replaced the single bachelor ‘merchant’ described by Russell.[3]

Khan al-Jumruk’s nearly 450 year-long history reflects the changes and particular dynamics of Aleppo’s commercial history. The structural changes are still visible today, like the merchants’ apartments on the first floor, particularly in the western wing, and the kiosks that open a view unto the busy courtyard. (fig. 12- 13)

Development over time

Footnotes